


>Karkat: Say No

by frenchifries



Series: Future Brite [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Quadrant Confusion, Quadrant Vacillation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 19:28:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8933932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frenchifries/pseuds/frenchifries
Summary: dave asks for something karkat isn't willing to provide.





	

You wake up to Dave touching your face, fond and feather-soft. Your eyes drift open slowly, blinking into the dark, consciousness floating to the surface from a sea of comfort. For a minute, you thought you were back in your recuperacoon, suspended in slime. How is he able to do that to you? You haven’t even made him read your favorite novels, yet. There’s no way he should be as good at conciliatory shit as he is.

He stops when he sees you’re awake.

“Hey.”

“You didn’t have to stop,” you mumble, nuzzling into the palm of his hand. It’s forward of you, you know that, and you can feel blood heating your cheeks.

“Oh,” is all he says before starting up again, tracing your cheek and ear and jaw and lips and. _Oh_ is right. Your eyes flutter shut, you can’t help it. You never thought he would be like this, but you’re glad he is—ashamed as you are to admit it even in the safety of your own pan. You press into his touch, burning with embarrassment at how easy you are; you could probably wax pale for a fucking snuggleplane if it enveloped you softly enough.

You’re starting to chirr, a pleasant rumble filling your chest, as he strokes his thumb over your lips. Traces their shape, the seam, it’s _nice_ , it’s so god damn perfect and pale and sometimes you wonder how you could ever want anything else from him.

And then he shifts, leans over, his eyes right in front of yours—you’re still struck by the color, stupid as that is; how fucking ridiculous that the color that kept you terrified all those sweeps, the color you could puke at the sight of because _what if someone sees I’m fucking dead if someone sees_ , is draped all over this asshole who makes you feel safer than you have in a long time.

His pupils are dilated, eyelids drooping lazily, and that redness pours into your paleness until the clicking in your abdomen stutters, splits, one strand going high and the other going low— _fuck fuck fuck_ really, in front of him? You know he doesn’t get it but that doesn’t make it any less humiliating.

“Can we… try something?” he whispers, stroking your cheek with the back of his hand and it’s fucking _filthy_ , he has no right to be looking at you with those blown-out eyes _and_ papping you _and_ asking to _try something_ , and…

And the fact that he wants that _eviscerates_ you, sends you reeling, leaves you nodding and clinging to his shirt breathlessly like a desperate pathetic piece of shit.

His pulse is pounding through his lips, through yours, you can practically taste the blood under his skin. He pulls back, goes for your cheek, misses, lands at your ear. You shudder, and hold him, and let him mouth along the side of your face, the side of your neck.

His hands glide up your back, down to the hem of your shirt, touching in question. You push a hand up under his shirt in answer. He gasps, twitches, and goes for it. Scrapes blunt fingernails over your torso column. You try the same, mouth at his neck, fingernails digging, teeth scraping.

And then his breath hitches and he says:

“Mmh, harder.”

“What?” A breath. Two breaths. “No.”

You’re already pushing it with red and pale, he can’t honestly be asking you to add black to the mix, can he?

“Please.” A trapped, strangled noise. “I need you to.”

Oh. _Oh_ , no, no, that’s not what he’s asking for at all, is it. You’re, _fuck_ , the books never said it was like this. Like the pieces of translucent colored glass you used to play with as a wiggler, holding them up to the moonlight, overlapping the different colors—one eclipses the other but the undertone is always there, neither ever fully disappearing, oh you are so _fucked_ for this boy.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” Fingers caressing softly, carefully. You don’t want to break this. Break him.

“I want it,” he says, low, urgent.

“No you don’t.”

“I do, I deserve it, just—”

“You don’t! I’m not going to.”

Silence. The echo lingers. Fuck. Shouldn’t have gotten angry.

“Like this,” he says, softly, guiding your hand, pressing your claws into the skin of his shoulder. “Please, just for a second.” Sad and scared and desperate.

“I can’t, Dave, I… I couldn’t live with myself if I did.”

More breathing.

“…Oh.” There’s a wetness to it, a whimper just beneath the surface.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, it’s… it’s not fair of you to ask me to do that. To hurt you. I can’t.” Face buried against his, hair tickling cheeks, blotting out the surrounding darkness. A kiss—on his cheek, on his ear, under his jaw.

“Oh. Mmm.”

Gentle. Cautious. Can’t ruin this. It could crumble at any second, if you’re not careful enough.

“I’m sorry. You don’t deserve that. No one deserves that.”

A damp shuddering breath. Hands curling, twisting in clothes and hair.

“I thought,” he starts. “I thought trolls were…”

“Violent? We… were. Supposed to be. But… not like this. Never like this. _This?_ ” You trace the thick raised scar along his ribcage, fight down the urge to be sick at the thought of its origin. “Is not what we did. Not to someone who’s supposed to trust you.”

“Okay.” He swallows. “Okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply… I mean, I didn’t think it was like that. I just thought, maybe… I dunno.”

You really don’t have it in you to be offended on behalf of your species. You know better than anyone how treacherous it was. They would have killed you in a heartbeat. You weren’t lucky enough to have anyone to trust, except your lusus, and he would _never_ …

But, oh. His would. His _did_. That, more than anything, fills you with igneous rage. That he could think there was ever a context where that was normal. That maybe he was _hoping_ to hear it could be normal. That he wants you to _hurt him_ because he needs to feel like it’s _normal_.

“It would be one thing,” you murmur, tracing patterns in the front of his shirt, “if you wanted it for real. If it made you feel good.”

“What makes you think—”

“That it won’t? Because… you’re like me.”

Another silence. Then:

“Would you do that to me, if I asked?”

“No,” he breathes, head shaking, trembling. Hands smoothing through your hair, over your horns. “No, I couldn’t, I would die, I would…”

“And I wouldn’t believe that I don’t deserve it, either.”

“Oh.”

Voices hushed, afraid. If it comes out too loud it might become too real. It might envelop and smother. It might destroy this.

“Just… pretend it’s the other way around. Pretend we’re each other.”

“What?”

“Show me how you would want to do it to me. Except, you’re me and I’m you. Get it?”

“O–oh.” Slowly, he nods. “Yeah. Okay.”

And then it’s just the sound of rumpled clothes in rumpled sheets, hitching breaths and gasps and sighs. Fingers twine together, sneak under shirts, touching careful and tender. Lips tracing throats, tracing shoulders, peppering kisses across arms and hands and chests. (And if you kiss each scar a little longer than necessary, he doesn’t mention it.)

Under the cover of darkness, you explore each other, touching feeling tasting. Going slow, mumbling nonsense into skin like it can brand and bless and protect. Here, and now, it’s safe enough to say:

“Is this okay?”

“Keep doing that.”

“Right there.”

“Don’t stop, please don’t stop.”

“Oh god oh god oh _god_.”

“Shh, shh, I’m here.”

“You’re good, you’re so good, you’re perfect.”

“Don’t go, stay right here, please, I need you.”

“Yes right there _right there yes yes fuck_ —”

He shows you the spots to touch, how to burrow into those hidden fragile parts. You show him how to take it, how to gasp and arch and sob beneath you.

You expected him to be like this about as much as he expected you to let him.


End file.
